Described below are methods for operating a management system of a communication system having at least one manager and one agent and a manager and an agent for executing the methods.
According to the principles of a management network, also denoted as TMN principles (TMN: Telecommunications Management Network), a plurality of management levels exist for the management of a communication system—such as for example a mobile radio communication system—each level having a dual function, namely a manager function and an agent function, with the exception of the uppermost and lowermost level. In the managing system each level, apart from the lowermost, executes a manager function for the level located thereunder. In the managed system, apart from the uppermost level, an agent function is associated with each level for the next highest level.
Managers initiate operations for network monitoring and network control, by transmitting so-called “requests”, which are performed by agents and obtain corresponding feedback, so-called “responses” from the agents. Elements of the telecommunications network, also denoted as resources of the telecommunications network, which in a TMN hierarchy execute the role of an agent, identify relevant so-called “events”, such as for example alarms, generate corresponding so-called “notifications”, and transmit them in the form of so-called “event reports”, to managers in order to permit an efficient network management.
The network management may, among others, include fault management and/or configuration management and/or security management and/or accounting management and/or performance management. By network management, appropriate mechanisms are intended to be provided for information distribution and information management, so that if required a comprehensive picture of the network status is available and the individual objects of the telecommunications network may be efficiently monitored and configured.
The manager-agent communication takes place via so-called management interfaces and/or manager agent interfaces, which are characterized in an object-oriented environment by a communication protocol, such as for example CMIP (Common Management Information Protocol), according to ITU-T X.711 or CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture), and by an object model. Object models serve for modeling resources of the telecommunications network, the resources being subdivided during the modeling into object classes.
Such interfaces are provided, for example, between, on the one hand, the network element management level and, on the other hand, the network element level. The operation and maintenance centers (OMC: Operation and Maintenance Center) on the side of the network element management level, as well as on the side of the network element level devices, such as for example base stations of the base station system (BSS: Base Station System) of a GSM mobile radio network, or base stations of other communication networks, for example NodeBs of a UMTS mobile radio network (UMTS: Universal Mobile Telecommunication System) or radio access points of a WLAN system (WLAN: Wireless Local Area Network), for example according to one of the IEEE 802.11 standards, represent an example of network devices of the manager agent interface.
Management interfaces and/or manager agent interfaces also exist between, on the one hand, the network management level and, on the other hand, the network element management level. The network management centers (NMC: Network Management Center) on the side of the network management level and the operation and maintenance centers (OMC: Operation and Maintenance Center) on the side of the network element management level, for example in the aforementioned GSM or a different mobile radio network or telecommunication network, represent an example of network devices for the manager agent interface.